Bystander to the Fray
by barlovento
Summary: "A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self. "- Marian Sandmaier. ME3 (and perhaps beyond) largely seen through the perspective of my OC, Marina Lavigne, little-known sister of John Shepard. Eventual OC/James V. hook up likely because I'm on a Vega kick and Garrus belongs to my FemSheps. ;)
1. Reunion

**A/N:** I have no idea if this will turn into a full fledged, routinely updated story or not. I haven't planned that far ahead: If I did I'd probably just psych myself out and never start at all! While I'm not entirely new to fanfiction, I've never done the whole ongoing story thing. There's a jumble of ideas a'swimmin' around and wanting an outlet, so we'll see how it goes!

**Warning:**

Obligatory: BioWare owns everything Mass Effect related, I'm just romping through their universe.

Heads UP: I am basing this story around an OC, a Shepard sibling. No, not a sibling who has to take his/her brother/sister's place after getting spaced or anything like that. My desire isn't to try to trump Shepard (how is that even possible?) but make someone with a close/complicated enough bond to delve into matters and topics of interest to me, as well as someone who could interact with canon characters without the established knotwork of story events. I'll stick to canon as much as possible, or, y'know... try to. For now? Well, I'll warn ahead of time if I think things are gonna get crazy AU or something.

Secondary: To save time I'm just slapping an M rating on this though I don't foresee immediate NSFW situations, they'll happen eventually. But there will definitely be harsh language and I'm sure violence will enter in so I'll just play it safe and go with 'M'.

* * *

_A sibling may be the keeper of one's __identity__, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self. _- Marian Sandmaier

_Our siblings. They resemble us just enough to make all their differences confusing, and no matter what we choose to make of this, we are cast in relation to them our whole lives long. _- Susan Scarf Merrell

**Vancouver, Earth, Fall, 2186:**

_In the Christian Bible, Lazarus of Bethany had two sisters: Martha and Mary. Martha the Reprimander and Hostess. Mary with the Perfume and the Hair. Lazarus of Bethany was a chum of the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. Laz ol' boy got sick and died while Jesus was away. Which Jesus found unacceptable, so in a sweet little bit of literary foretelling, he resurrects ol' Laz from the dead. The thing is, Lazarus ends up having to dodge mobs and angry priests afterwards, not for anything he did, except, well, not have the good decency to stay dead when his number came up. No, we're never really given any reason for why Lazarus is so important to Jesus or anyone else. And no one wants him dead for any great characteristic of his own, it all comes down to Jesus, who is going to go off and trump his own miracle come Passover anyway. _

_So we've got the family: _

_Lazarus: He's important._

_Martha: She's kind of a harridan. _

_And Mary: Sweet and attentive and fond of using her hair as a towel. _

_And I've got to wonder sometimes, in all the upheaval around Jesus and Laz: What were Martha and Mary thinking? Martha with her pragmatic, practical or just petty concerns. Mary with her doe eyes and her worship; her sweetness and her gratitude. What was it like for them? I suppose the same can be asked of the family of any celebrity, any villain or messiah, any hero. _

_We live in shadows, we Sisters of Lazarus, we Siblings of Jesus (or 'cousins' - just depends on whether you like your virgins __**just **__immaculate or immaculate __**and **__perpetual). We are veiled in obscurity, from the shade these Colossi cast. But I like to think the Martha's and the Mary's... I like to think that cool shadow enabled us to see more clearly, not blinded by the radiance of the spotlight or the light our Other reflects back outward, these great Moons of our lives. _

_A moon is a good metaphor, too, now that I think of it: we Sisters of Lazarus, we Siblings of Jesus, we mortal relations of Hercules and Atlas and Achilles - how pulled and pushed are we by the tides they cast, for no greater reason than they exist and they are resplendent for it. _

_Metaphors and I get carried away with each other; we get all sorts of indecently tangled up, so it's all chaotic and incoherent shambles to make onlookers gawk or avert their eyes. We're shameless like that._

_So about 2050 years later, there's a new Lazarus. His name - ironically enough - is Shepard. Lieutenant Commander John Shepard. His 'Jesus' is a goblin with a bad cover name, the Illusive Man. The tendrils and conduits of Mr. Illusive's gobsmacking powers is his covert, questionable and infamous organization called Cerberus. Which just means we're mixing Judeo Christian and Greek metaphors all the fuck up, which may explain why my rambling allegories got away with me. _

_I'm Martha and Mary. Maybe more the former than the latter: I'm grateful my brother isn't dead, of course, don't get me wrong. He's my blood, my hero. He was my hero way the hell before he did anything of galactic fucking importance, that's for damned sure. He was my hero when he tied my shoelaces and taught me how to kidney punch any asshole who got out of control with the grabby hands and selective hearing. See, if my brother was Lazarus and Cerberus was Jesus, then I at least would know damned well why Lazarus was worth all the trouble to save. And like Mary I'd be grateful... but maybe I'm more like the stodgy priests in that old tale: Because it doesn't change the fact that I'd be happy to see Cerberus dead, no matter what miraculous feats they pulled off._

_Fuck, I hate this. It took me months to untangle myself from my duties to even get back to Earth in the first place. And then weeks of a whole lot of political and military bullshit, red tape to finally gain access to make it as far as the detention ward of Alliance HQ in Canada. All this waiting and now I'm pacing the holding area, off starboard on the quarterdeck; just need to pass through one last checkpoint before master control will buzz me through. One more step to the whole headache of a process and yet here I am, wearing a trough on the carpet and thinking of crazy, crackpot analogies to sum up what is the simultaneously one of the simplest and most complicated truths about me:_

_John Shepard is the Savior of the Citadel; he's Lazarus and he's maybe Jesus, too, or Hercules or Atlas. And me? _

_I'm his sister. I haven't seen him in over two years. Closer to three now. _

_I'm Marina Shepard Lavigne, and I miss my brother like fucking crazy. _

_So I guess it's time to do something about it._

_And like that, I turn a sharp left face and prepare to stride through one last flash identity scan, so the biometrics can ping DNA related to the man the Systems Alliance is trying to hold back, or keep safe depending on whose version of the story you're getting [and whomever may be listening in]_

_I'm ready now. _

_Can't say much about Martha or Mary or any of the other Siblings of the Greats? See, history likes to paint in a lot of jealousy and idolatry; tension and drama, the sort of stuff that makes for a great morality tale or intense vid._

_I'm just glad John's alive._

_I've missed the hell out of my brother._

* * *

"Staff Lieutenant Lavigne?"

The corporal tries to catch her attention for the second time, his snapped-to-it salute and greeting-of-the-day dropped in favor of simple inquisition, the inflection teetering between concern and mild annoyance. Past the quarterdeck of D-Wing at HQ, there's a replica of the Normandy SR-1, along with a plaque commemorating the achievements and pursuits of Commander Shepard himself. Commissioned, the corporal figured, after the unique frigate was blown the hell up and the legendary commander declared dead.

Corporal Beck appreciates the irony of course: The damned memorial is still there even though the galaxy's known Shepard is alive [again? after all? rumors were wild and all over the place] for about a year now. All the more bemusing that the man memorialized is currently in a detention suite not 200 feet away. But Beck can't call the expression on the Staff Lieutenant's face wry or surprised or anything one might associate with the rather macabre humor of the memorial's symbolism. If he had to put a name to Lavigne's expression it would be... sorrow. Grim. Stark. Sadness. With something lurking in the periphery of her dark eyes: Fear? A good marine knows fear when he sees it in his fellows. He knows it because it's a reflection of his own concerns. Outsiders brush it off as bravado; grunts and jarheads just being full of bluster, vitriol and ego: But a good marine knew better.

"Hey," his hand finds her shoulder, covered by her medical service uniform, the form fitting outfit that made the day of many a wounded soldier. Beck's palm rests over the subtle thread work of her officer bars, small and burnished bronze in color, unlike the flashy eye catching gold of the dress blues. "Doc?"

The contact finally stirs her from her reverie: She blinks and turns her gaze away from the memorial replicas and holos, glancing down at his hand then up to the corporals eyes, her expression at once apologetic and aloof. "I apologize, Corporal," she says while Beck moves his hand away. "I-"

For a moment, Beck thinks she'll offer an explanation for spacing out like she did. He thinks she's searching for the words, gathering them together with a quiet deliberation that echoes the sadness he sensed earlier. But there's a released breath and then she turns bodily, facing him, arms akimbo and settled, gaze expectant, one eyebrow slightly arched. With this first good look at the Staff Lieutenant, Beck can feel a tickle at the edges of his cognizance, like his thoughts are trying to formulate a connection, while his gaze sweeps over her face, then to the memorial and back again. There's _something _there, he's sure of it, but he can't quite place it. The woman herself is attractive in a subdued way; a soft, classical way, rounded and delicate; a delicacy tempered by uncovered signs of _living_, such as the pale line at the bridge of her sleek nose that spoke of a bad break some years ago, maybe even in her childhood. A spray of freckles, the hallmark of alabaster complexions recently exposed to unaccustomed natural sunlight. Her irises were dark, the exact color hard to place in the fluorescent lighting of the hall; her upper lip rounded and slightly fuller than the bottom, an asymmetry that Beck wasn't sure he found appealing or not. And in the svelte medical uniform, Lavigne's build was slight, petite in its structure and average in her height. A well made woman, all in all, sure, but nothing to explain a drawing allure he couldn't place.

It was the _pull _she exuded that allowed the tickling frisson of fragmented cognizance to click into place, punctuated by the surprise that registered openly on the corporal's face. The symmetry he noticed wasn't perfect: Her appeal was a quiet, earthen pleasantness that beckoned confidence and confidences. Beck's eyes darted to the holo' portrait of Normandy's commanding officer: His magnetism was potent, almost brutal; scathing when his temper frayed. What he sensed from the medic before him was but a fraction of the force Shepard could exude in a steady glare; but the inkling of similarity was all it took for the correct synapses to fire; the connection crossed and accepted as a surprising truth.

The span of an even breath: That was all the time that passed and the revelation was hardly earth shattering, simply... unexpected. A reminder, then, that even demigods had mortal relations. Lavigne witnessed the corporals thoughts in play over his face, received with a pleasantly wry upsweep of her slightly off-kilter lips. Her expression was companionable rather than mocking, though her bearing remained proper of an officer addressing an enlisted.

There was humour in her eyes, too, but tempered and she nodded, a minimalist motion. Then she loosened herself with a roll of her shoulders; one gloved hand rising to rub at the back of her neck, covered by her uniforms high collar, hand beneath the heaviness of the coiled knot of her auburn hair, bound up in a regulations bun. With the normalcy, the humanity of the gestures, she transformed, just another junior officer, and the brief but jolting polarity passed. "So, corporal," she spoke again, "I assume you're here to escort me to Commander Shepard's quarters?"

"Yes, ma'am," a beat. A tick. He had to know for sure: "Ma'am, is he... are you both..."

Lavigne released her breath like a sigh and nodded, "He's my brother, corporal."

"Well... damn," the utterance was out before Beck caught himself and cleared his throat, an apology ready on his lips before the doc shook her head, belaying him with a knowing half-smirk. "Yeah," she mused knowingly, "ain't that just a kick in the quad?"

"Damn," he reiterated.

"Just so." Inclining her head down the hall, Lavigne's smile slipped away, something of that reserved apprehension roiled tight in her eyes again. "Lead the way?"

Relieved of duty should bring some perks: Like being able to grow a beard. Regulations never stopped him from the act, really - the grand bulk of Alliance regs ceased to worry him years ago - but breathers and assorted masks made beards impractical out in the field; compromising seals or so the mantra went. On being relieved after that damned travesty of an investigation and NJP, he'd promised himself he'd grow an obscenely ostentatious beard, maybe something to rival the old black and white, grainy two dimensional pics of generals from the _first _American civil war.

Then he remembered a beard itches like a bitch when it's growing in.

And the damned thing refused to grow in well, thanks to the lingering scars from his cybernetic implants. The synthetic protein layer Dr. Chakwas implanted seven months ago tamed the bulk of the scarring, but they refused to knit and conceal completely. Chakwas might say it was something about his lack of a positive outlook. Some shrink bull about morality or something: Doc was probably right, she usually was. But Karin Chakwas wasn't around to ask [or scold] and he wasn't letting any other Alliance medic get their claws on him. Fucking docs and their prodding, their questions, their eager little eyes looking him over like he was splayed out for dissection.

The shaving lather was thick on his skin: He clung to old fashioned, outdated methods these days. A soap dish and a brush and fucking Aqua Velva aftershave that stung like a bitch and reminded him of Paris Island. Low tech. Simple. K.I.S.S. And as he thought of the slew of doctors he'd been shackled under since he'd turned himself in for detention the opaque white froth on his cheeks and jaw made a stark backdrop to the red glow glinting in his eyes, a spark to match the rising pique of his infamous coldfire temper. And the light over his mirror was a broad spectrum, momentarily too bright, like the overhead shine when he'd woken up in the lab, sirens on the air and Miranda's voice in his ear.

The hiss on his breath matched the hiss of the rooms automatic door, the tech display shifting from red to green as someone punched in a code on the other side and unlocked his cell. A spacious and accommodating cell with a helluva view of Vancouver's bustling city and distant mountain range, but a cell nonetheless. John Shepard readjusted the grip of his razor; he puckered his lips and shifted his mouth to the side, stretching the skin of his cheek taut in the process, prepared for an upstroke, close and against the grain, eyes lifted now [the red flicker gone - was it ever there at all?] to see which guard was bringing what parcel or taking him to some new room for another slew of dense questions and reprimands, spoken and unspoken. Corporal Beck stepped in and Shepard saw his own eyebrows arch: _Guess his paternity leave is up_. Hell, Shepard even felt what passed for a smile tugging at his lips: Because slapping the corporals back and asking about newfound fatherhood would feel normal. Just... simple. Plain. _Normal_.

"Commander," Beck snapped to, heels together, salute smart as hell and just as unwarranted. The urge to banter evaporated and Shepard grunted, noncommittal, as he finished the upstroke of his blade. It was a show of solidarity and support, how his guards still saluted him, still addressed him by a rank the Alliance Tops had wrenched away from him. They meant well by it, he reminded himself. Vega's influence on them was plain to see. But each time it was also just another damned reminder of this whole fucking charade.

Eyes closing, he shook his head fractionally, "Just Shepard, Corporal. Just Shepard," he said, his voice deadpan and his eyelids parting while he prepared to pucker his gob up again, continuing the grooming routine. But opening his eyes lets him spot his first glimpse of someone behind Beck: The sheen of dark auburn hair pulled back, a slight flare of feminine hip in a medical uniform [he felt his molars grind down hard] the womans head coming no higher than Beck's shoulder, face obscured. Shepard squints, angles his head, watching the angle of the mirrors reflection shift. His grip on the razor clenched and even Beck - who knew the Commander seldom gave away any accidental tells - didn't miss the surprise that registered there; the upswell of relief. And anger.

Static crackled in the air.

"John," Lavigne stepped up, from behind the corporal and into the room proper, her eyes glued on her brother's reflection in the mirror. "You're cutting yourself." Her voice is hushed. Beck can't tell if it's quiet admonishment or shock or concern; maybe all of it.

"'Rina," Shepard grated out in a voice that sounded trapped between awe and pain. And maybe... just maybe... loss and need.

The Corporal couldn't say which one moved first: Brother or sister. He didn't register who crossed the gab, just that they came together, like a bull rush of water on jetty stones: Beck was already turning away, already sure that this reunion deserved whatever privacy he could afford. He was supposed to remain within the room whenever visitors were present, but that didn't stop him from stepping outside the door and letting it shut behind him. He'd stand guard here; leave them be, with the last image stark in his mind's eye: Shepard - larger than life and twice as daunting - curled over and around his sister, protectively clinging... or maybe desperately grasping. Now that he thought of it, Beck wasn't sure who was supporting whom. His own thoughts drifted to his young wife at home, with their newborn daughter at her breast, just like he'd left them that morning: And he hoped to god that Lavigne's seemingly slight frame was strong enough to support a man no one else here could reach.

* * *

"'Rina," he breathed again, her nickname a mantra, brief but broken. The ache she felt was poignant: There, just above the sternum and right below the clavicle; where emotion bursts and hurts. His arms were vice like around her, but then, so were hers around his waist, her forehead against his shoulder and his cheek atop her head, hunched over to do so; mussing shaving cream in her hair, to mingle with the simple scents of her organic perfume.

He was trembling. With pent up emotion, of that she had no doubt, but with John that all too often meant he was just on the verge, just on the cusp of losing that steely, intimidating [and, to her, god awful, sometimes] control; the hallmark self possession that made him so formidable. The force of his will shuddered on the edge; it came as no surprise to Marina when emotion shifted, becoming cold temper. He wasn't holding her anymore, but gripping her upper arms, giving her one hard shake.

"What the fuck are you _doing _here? I told them to keep you away, goddammit. Fuck!" Shepard wasn't a yeller and that made his anger far more aggressive than volume would; he chilled people with his grating voice and icey blue eyes, so much lighter than her own.

_Well, nice to see some things haven't changed_, she thought. She was no less surprised than he when she started to laugh: Hushed laughter, more a breathy vibration from throat and lips, but laughter nonetheless as she shrugged her arms, expecting him to lose his grip and grateful when he did so. His glare only intensified at her laughter; which broadened her smile; broadened her smile while the sting of unshed tears smart her eyes. And the liquid glisten that lightened the hue of her irises melted him, eased away the acidic bile of his frustration [his orders disobeyed; his control lessened; his fears tested]. He cupped his sisters cheek and shuddered a breath, shaking his head. "I told them... it's not safe, 'Rina." Softer, gentler. And she could see it too, there where he thought his emotions so well hidden: Fear for her. The strain of it all.

"Ah, c'mon, Atlas," she quipped quietly, her hands rising up to his shoulders, her touch gentle; a warmth genuinely maternal in nature; her tone teasing in manner sororal. "Shrug a little, eh?"

Shepard groaned at the resurfacing of her old nickname for him, but Marina caught the tweak of one side of his mouth and felt some smidgen of her own tension loosen when his eyes lost more of that glacial edge, "Hadn't you heard, sis?" his baritone even spoken but gruff all the same, annoyance lacing his attempt to calm himself with her offered levity. "That globe got yanked clear off my back." He meant to smirk her way, but she knew him too well. Remembered him too well, in the way of close siblings, who are never as successful at fooling each other as they are with fooling the rest. His anger frosted his voice, just there at the undertone, the subtle pitches. Anger? Frustration. Urgency. John was never one to idle by: This ongoing detention, the relief of his command, the distraction from his goals... it was eating him up. And there was that ache again, in her chest; the liquid sheen in her eyes.

"Aw, kid," he half-groaned, reaching up to rub a hand over his face, only to smear shaving cream and curse under his breath, reaching for a towel draped over the edge of the sink and scrubbing it over his jaw, looking towards Marina with a mixture of consternation and protectiveness. "C'mon, it's not so bad. I'm... look, 'Rina, I'm glad you're here, really, I am, I know... I meant to..." Tossing his hands up he barked a short laugh, pained. "Fuck, all the shit I've done and my kid sister still gets me all out of sorts when she cries."

Marina's laughter isn't the easy, musical breeze he remembers: Age has tempered it. Time and life have deepened the resonance and roughened the undertone, just so. But her eyes still light up almost the way he recalls from their youth and her smile just as soothing, "Not crying. Just working up some endorphins. To help with the ache when big headed hot-shot brothers forget to come see their sisters when they come back from the dead. Should I call you Laz now?"

"No," he cuts; the response hard, teeth snapped then clenched. Despite herself Marina blanches slightly, fighting the urge to step back; transferring the energy of the would-be motion forward, stepping closer instead, concern etched strong on her features.

"Hey," she murmurs, reaching for his hands with her own; so much smaller; smooth in their gloves. "It's OK, John. I'm sorry, I should have known better."

He clears his throat, clenching her hands for one brief, nearly painful moment; then he pulls away from her and moves to the bay window of his quarters, one arm rising up, forearm resting against the windowpane, his weight shifting as he speaks and looks outward without seeing. "I wanted to see you, 'Rina. But it seemed... it's safer, people not knowing about you. You're one helluva juicy target to get to me, kid, you know that. I can't... it was one thing I could play some damage control on, Marina. You've got to trust me on this."

Breathing a sound like a sigh, sister comes alongside brother, resting her back against the window; her hands curling over the small sill edge, watching him while he watches the world beyond his reach. "Anderson told me as much," is her acquiescence. "But if even half of what I've heard is true... John, nowhere is going to be safe soon. I had to come see you: David said you are going to be released soon - don't snort like that, you sound like a horse - and when that happens... Johnny, you knows how long it'd be again before I had a chance?"

_If ever_; those were the words left unspoken but heard by both siblings all the same.

Years between contact: Little more than a handful of emails and vid-calls before the SR-1 was destroyed; little more than a lone message from Anderson telling Marina her brother was alive, some 9 months ago. Nine months: So the silence that settled between them now was late term in its pregnancy: Full and overwhelming, with a sense of time slipping away; a premonition of drastic changes to come. Pain and labor. Hope and joy?

John Shepard reached over and brushed back a loose strand of hair from his sister's cheek, sticky with shaving cream; she turned and laid her head on his shoulder, facing out the window now, both of them, side by side. No different, really, than how they'd stand on the hilltop outside the boundary line of the homestead colony at Mindoir. Outside the window of Shepard's detention room, a child played with a toy frigate, racing around a rooftop garden in the brisk Autumn sun. The Shepard siblings watched as the light glinted off the lacquer paint of the toy spaceship and the glossy platinum streaks of the boys tawny blonde hair.

"I heard about Brandon, Marina... I'm... sorry," feeling his sister stiffen at his words, Shepard loops an arm around her shoulders, hugging her sidelong, stumbling for the right words. In the midst of battle, in the heat of combat, in the wait before carnage: He always knew what to say. But things like this... "He... he was a good man."

Marina nods; slowly, feeling the ghost of her wedding ring where once it would lay flush against and around her left ring finger beneath her gloves; no longer there. Tucked away now for safekeeping and promises to friends of moving on with her life. "He was," she agrees. Agrees and shifts the subject aside, like she tucked away her ring. "Talk to me, John," she says instead, tilting her chin up, head back, to look over his profile. "What's going on?"

No sooner are the words spoken than he's moving away, starting to turn from the window, gathering his thoughts and tension resumes its command of his muscles, his stance, radiating off of him in waves; the push and pull of his harsh brand of magnetism. Marina's hands fold before her, arms crossed at her waist, watching him, a satellite to his movements. He reaches for a datapad next to his bed, lips parting, ready to vomit up truth like resentment and urgent vehemence, when the tech display at the door flashes from red to green again and the mechanism hisses as metal slides open, in striding a damned behemoth of a marine, all muscles and form-slick undershirt to offset deep tan skin. Not regulation wear, but the hair, the dog tags and the fatigue cargo pants all scream 'Grunt' like a four letter word.

"Commander," he salutes, spot-on and sleek, a grace of motion unexpected from someone built like a fucking mountain. "Ma'am," he adds saluting Lavigne as well, noting near instinctively the different hue of her lone shoulder bar that marks him a grade higher than himself. Returning the salute even if her brother won't, Marina is mildly surprised, in some small corner of her mind, to feel that old lure; that deep enticing. Nothing overdone; no panting need or sudden stark arousal. Just that _awareness _of someone else. Between one thing and another, over a year has passed since she'd felt it. Of course, the urge to draw nearer and check him out are neatly and promptly shoved aside. Professionalism and good sense take care of that. But it's a relief to know she can still feel it.

For his part, Shepard glances up to the 1st Lieutenant and his sister notes with interest the telltale signs of a respectful rapport between both men. Echoing much the same words earlier spoken to Beck [the corporal is posed on guard outside the door, still, a hint of consternation in his visage] Shepard shakes his head, though he actually smiles at the lieutenant, faintly. "You're not supposed to call me that anymore, James."

"Not supposed to salute you either," brusque, dismissive attitude of the living colossus, with his easy disregard for political repercussions. James carries on without missing a beat, his head inclined slightly towards the still open doorway behind him. "We've gotta go, the Defense Committee want's to see you."

James seems intent on leaving immediately, subdued energy tantalizing in his on-duty demeanor; it's that undercurrent of importance that causes Marina to notice activity has increased near the detention centre on row 01 200 300, soldiers moving either which way with that precise clip that calls to fellow servicemen like the hum of bees in a hive, synchronizing a habitual awareness of some unknown but critical development.

She felt her stomach clench, down low, the centre of her gravity, an instinctive response of foreboding. And she isn't alone: John looks towards his sister even as he echoes her thoughts when he tosses the datapad back on the bed and answers James, "Sounds important," he says, looking from Marina to James and back again, his expression guarded but conflicted. His sister starts to lift a hand, to wave him away with her blessing, but her relief is clear when her brother silently shakes his head and grabs her hand, pulling her along with him.

The Commander's insistence on not leaving the woman behind takes the younger Lieutenant aback, though he catches his reaction well, curiosity tempered for the sake of expedience. Stepping in tandem, the siblings keep from running over a Service Chief as they follow James's wake out of the room, at a quickstep to catch up.

As much as Marina blanched at the idea of her reunion with her brother being cut short so quickly, she couldn't help but tug light at his hand, shifting his gaze her way, "John, I'm not cleared to go into the CIC with you," she started, but Shepard raised his hand in a silencing gesture and the younger sibling complied, biting her tongue with a grimace._ Some things never change_, a thought clear in her eyes. John's only acknowledgement is that classic grim smirk of his, gone almost before it showed as he turns his attention back to the walking tank they're following.

"What's going on," he queries, while James looks over his shoulder and rolls them, an effect - Marina notes- that draws entirely too much attention to the harmonious shifting of so much massed, corded muscle in tempo. An inopportune time to be mesmerized by such a display, the woman chastises herself with a derisive roll of her eyes, before blaming it on the hyperalert state of strain around her.

"Couldn't say," the Lieutenant answered Shepard, "just told me they needed you. Now."

They'd yet to round a corner when the trio spotted a familiar face striding towards them, dress blues sharp and the row of golden bars on each shoulder screaming out his rank. Salutes flew, even in the growing bustle of the corridor, soldiers reflexively acknowledging such 'shinies' where they saw them. Admiral Anderson took in Marina's place walking alongside her brother, one of the few in the Alliance who knew of their kinship, his smile for her was slight but warm for all of it, briefly displayed. A nod was all it took for him to mutely grant his permission for her to tag along, though he motioned Shepard up beside him and they took the lead, leaving the two lieutenants to make their way as a respectful distance behind their superior officers.

The 1st Lieutenant looked askance at the Staff Lieutenant now beside him, not tempering his stride though she didn't seem to need it: Long legs were worth more than mere eye candy when it came to keeping up with the boys... or leaving them in the dust. Once more his curiosity over this unknown woman's identity painted itself over James's bold hispanic features; his attention affording him an unguarded look at the strain in her gaze, that followed Anderson and Shepard as they walked ahead; her dark eyes large in the softer plains of her face. James tried to read the look, to gauge it: Who was this woman to Shepard? What was her connection to Anderson? A better man than the Admiral was hard to find, James knew all too well, but he wasn't exactly warmly genial with everyone. There'd been affection in the older man's gaze when he'd seen Shepard and the Doc.

Subtle was never James's forte, so he spoke up, voice easy, a dropped baritone, nevermind their brisk pace: All the muscle work wasn't at the expense of stamina apparently. "James Vega, ma'am."

For a beat the woman blinked up at him, clearly distracted by her focus on the two men ahead who had stopped now, talking heatedly but not loud enough to be heard in the din of activity around them. Not being able to hear seemed to irk the woman and Vega felt his mouth curl in bemusement, "Eavesdropping, ma'am?"

She blushed: Far too easily, a natural side effect of her complexion. People often read too much into it, much to her consternation. Vega seemed delighted by the rosy flush, his eyes [she noticed, with surprise, that they were a hazel-green, not the muted brown she originally noted] alight with an infectious humour that she thought would be roguish - scampish - if not for the current circumstances of unrest around them._ Probably damned incorrigible, too_, she added to herself.

"Trying to," she answered his implication with ease, rolling her shoulders, her lips half curled, though the smile vanished swiftly when her gaze turned back towards the Admiral and her brother, reading his body language with a familiarity that only increased her concern.

Speaking as an aside she sighed, "I'm Marina Lavigne." No sooner was the introduction free of her lips than Anderson and Shepard started walking again, brisker than before and the two lieutenants followed suit.

"This isn't good," she murmured up towards the giant beside her.

A giant who looked back down her way, his half-smile belying his seemingly devil-may-care nature with a sobriety that matched her own: "No shit, doc."


	2. Things Fall Apart

_**A/N: **__Woo! Chapter 2! And look, I got a review! ^^ Thanks muchly, ShyWriter413, for your kind words: It's always encouraging to know someone else may actually enjoy reading ones writing. _

_So, it took me a long time to decide who this stories VS would be. See, I always play as FemShep myself and I've saved/killed both Ashley and Kaidan. I know the statistics say most players of ME1 played as BroShep and most saved Ashley and offed Kaidan. So my original inclination was to go with the stats and just run with Ashley as the VS for this little jaunt. And after a lot of hemming and hawing, that's what I went with. The choice wasn't easy for me. To be perfectly honest, I'm not overly fond of either Ashley OR Kaidan as characters. :/ If I feel much of anything for either of them it's apathy and sometimes slight annoyance/boredom, despite many attempts to enjoy the characters more._

_Ultimately, Ashley's connection to her own family/sisters (her best quality, imo) ties in nicely to the premises of this fic, so I'm running with Williams. _

_I don't consider combat and action my forte as a writer and this chapter is - by necessity - somewhat full of it, so here's hoping it didn't come out quite as rough as it feels to me. :/_

_Back to the story!_

_(And, of course, I own nothing. BioWare/EA owns all things Mass Effect *mantra*)_

* * *

"They're expecting you two, Admiral," a young roan-haired S1C greeted Anderson and Shepard, leading the quartet through the final checkpoint into HQs courtroom where the Defense Committee has gathered. The activity here is even more frenetic than in the hallways, leaving little doubt of the escalated rate of readiness. Marina's expression remains outwardly impassive when her peripheral vision notes the THREATCON display at the corner of the digital news banner shift to a neon yellow 'C'. From Beta to Charlie, then, and little surprise. What she can only describe as an _itch _ripples over her skin beneath her service uniform, the frenetic osmosis of energy around her bleeding into her pores and kicking up her adrenal response. Someone jostled her abruptly in passing, making her sidestep to keep her balance, aided by her brother in the process; Shepard caught her at the bicep, hoisting slightly, and it occurred to Marina that he was, if anything, even stronger than she remembered. With his free right hand, John was clasping Vega's own paw while the Lieutenant wished him luck.

Nodding his acknowledgement of Vega's well wishes - a flicker of gratitude in his eyes, a hint of camaraderie - John shifted his attention to Marina, though his body was already half turned to continue following Anderson. She sensed his confliction: there was still an unspoken understanding she was happy to find still existed between them. And her mouth shifted, half-cocked as she nodded, putting on a brave front little different from the one she'd assumed when he'd left their foster parents care to fly Earth-side for Paris Island. He was 18. She was 14. All over again, like the span of some 12 years hadn't passed since then. And just like before, all those years ago, he seemed uncertain if leaving her was the right choice.

On the cusp, his expression torn [frustrated, angry, worried], then a female voice cut through the din around them, "Shepard," half exclamation, pitch raised with... surprise? Pleasure? Just as John turned towards the voice, so too did Marina allow her gaze to follow, alighting on a statuesque brunette, her tailored uniform vastly appealing in Alliance blues.

"Ashley?" The query of the name was highlighted in John's voice: Not someone he was expecting, his sister deduced. The name tickled her memory: Ashley. Ashley Williams? The Gunnery Chief from the SR 1? A Gunnery Chief no longer, it seemed. Williams had moved up in the world, apparently, from an NCO to an Officer, Lieutenant Commander, indicated by the insignia over her left breast. Williams was now what old time Marines would call a Mustang, an Officer risen from the ranks of Enlisted.

Never easily deterred, Shepard looked back over his shoulder at the Lieutenants behind him, from his sister's attentive gaze to Vega's spartan observation, curiosity present but reigned. "Go on, John," Marina urged her brother, this man who stirred attention even here, even now, when so much was going on. She was fully aware of how people gave Shepard a respectful berth, even as their attention gravitated towards him, even if just for a moment.

There was no holding him and no holding him back, not really. Her smile was proud, but sad, John thought. And Vega was all the more intrigued to watch the slight-built medic dismiss Commander Shepard, for all intents and purposes, as if she gave him leave and not the other way around. Given the undercurrents between the two, Vega was unsurprised when the Commander nodded to him, "Keep my guest company, will you, James?"

As was his way, Vega didn't miss the opportunity to let his lips stretch, half-sly with a look askance at the medic: "Oh, I'll keep the Doc company, Commander, _claro que si_." From where he stood he could just make out the uncanny similarity in Shepard and Lavigne's expressions as man and woman almost simultaneously snorted; how a wrinkle appeared between both of their respective eyebrows. Shepard's eyes tightened mildly, the universal masculine body language of _watch-yourself-bro_, whereas Lavigne's eyes rolled slightly, her arms crossing beneath her breasts, her demeanor wryly charmed, if distracted. They were all - beneath the passing, brief banter - keyed up, after all.

Shepard joined Anderson and Williams, a brief interlude, the words lost in the low din; Marina's play-defensive pose minutely changing: Her arms remained crossed, but her hips shifted, coming back into line, her body language concerned - apprehensive - as Anderson and Shepard took their leave, disappearing into the courtroom.

"You know the Commander?" Vega asked Williams, while the lovely, strong-built brunette watched Shepard leave.

"I used to," was Ashley's response; dry and introspective both.

"Some guys get all the luck," James quipped harmlessly, glancing from the stately Williams to the slight-built Lavigne. And his quip scored a double hit: A grimace from Williams as she turned to face the Marine and the medic and a startled blink from Lavigne, surprise that turned to a short huff of laughter as the medic shook her head. A response was on her lips, but Williams was eyeing both lieutenants expectantly, thick [but well groomed and sculpted] eyebrows arched just so.

Protocol.

Lavigne held her salute until Williams returned it, then held out her gloved hand, "LC, it's good to meet you. Marina Lavigne: John spoke highly of you."

In different circumstances Marina would have to stifle a grin at the way both Williams and Vega blinked at the use of Shepard's given name, with such familiarity and ease. John? Who called Commander Shepard _'John'_? The Butcher of Torfan, the Savior of the Citadel, the Survivor of the Omega 4 Relay - who the hell called this man _John_?

Dual gazes of mixed levels of incredulity and query [and perhaps a touch of icy reserve from Williams] fixed themselves on the medic, one set of irises rich mocha brown and the other a green far gentler than the bold lines and scars of Vega's face should warrant. There was just enough of the imp about Marina's personality to enjoy tripping them up with speculation; just enough of her that still found it surreal that her brother [ flesh and bone; bonds of blood] had built up this mythos, this Herculean regard, that too easily stripped him of his basic humanity.

It is the truth of the last thought that banishes her whimsy, her cat-paws delight at letting them stew and wonder. Her bemused smile slips away suddenly, replaced with a sigh and a grimace: Up goes her hand again, rubbing at the back of her neck, "He's my brother, LC. That's why he's mentioned you."

_So stop looking at me like I'm a threat_, Marina thinks - and, yes, perhaps broadcasts in her level eye contact with Williams.

"Brother," Williams seems... floored. Her large eyes widening further; ambrosial plump lips parting, her surprise only heightened by this admission.

It's Vega who recovers himself with ease: A blink of his eyes [unanticipated, their softness] and then he seems patently pleased. Not the smugness of a man who realizes a woman is 'available', no; his pleasure is a genuine, strong-foundation happiness. The refreshing quality of someone who is earnestly able to be pleased for the good fortune of someone other than themselves and Marina warms a trace towards this further glimpse of the man behind the brawn.

"No shit," Vega exclaims, "I had no idea. Nice," he punctuates, his regard of the medic sincere in its approval. For a moment Marina fears she's about to have to endure an onslaught of hero-worshipping interrogations: _What's your brother like? Tell me more about the man behind the legend! _But the cascade of questions never comes: Instead she's surprised to find Vega simply smiling, quietly; slightly nodding. "_Familia's_ important, Doc. Good family even more, _no_?"

Marina's eyes are sharp [she refuses to call them smitten] and she catches the passing shadow in the depths of Vega's warming irises when he speaks of the worth of _good _family, the difference stressed. There then gone again, the dark flicker, easily missed. Regardless, Marina makes no comment, beyond nodding her agreement, willing the tension in her shoulders to loosen as she looks back to Williams who has regained her composure during the exchange; her gaze now... dubious? Suspicious?

"Shepard never mentioned a sister."

Hurt?

Resisting the urge to rub at her neck again, Marina nods, "He doesn't tell many people. It's... his way of keeping me safe," her admission punctuated by an expression both chagrined and acceptant.

"Different dads?"

Marina looks back to James at his question, somewhat surprised by it, her head tilting to the side before the reason dawns on her, "Oh! The last name? No, it... I was married." Vega nods at the clarification, his appraisal indiscernible, but leisurely; comfortable. He doesn't press further and her attention is once more caught up by the assessing steady-stare Williams is still leveling on her. The hint of subdued hostility - distrust? - leaves the medic... sympathetic.

"It's hard to get to know him," she says quietly - discerning. Quietly, at least, in proportion to the bustle of the room. A bustle that is starting to increase. Someone comes running from the courtroom, barking an order at the poor lackey chasing behind him. The three soldiers shift their stances: Williams and Vega more so than Lavigne, though she is all too sensitive of the sudden increase of foreboding. From the closing great door of the courtroom comes the distinctive sound of combat-comms static and satellite vids of gunfire.

"Yeah... yeah," whispers Ashley, the words inaudible, but readable on her generous lips.

"LC, ah, maybe we should-" Vega steps in closer to the two women, favoring Marina's side slightly, an action she is sure is ingrained in him much like any other Marine: Shield the non-combatant. Not that combat medics were technically non-coms, but they are considered precious when a mission goes SNAFU.

"What's going on in the-"

William's question was cut short not by violence or immediate catastrophe, but sudden silence, like all the world decided then and there to stop as one, fixated, mesmerized and simply inhale. Breathe in. Stunned. Hold.

There is a sharp pain at Marina's bicep; a rude, blunt manipulation as she feels herself pulled towards the hall that leads back to the quarterdeck, and only then does she spot the trigger to this time-lag of dread, this collective prey-freeze of instinctive fear...

Like something birthed from an illicit tryst between Wells and Lovecraft, metallic seeming tentacles descend from cloud cover, horrifically graceful in the motion of such enormous appendages and spacecraft.

_**Move! Go, go, go! **_

They knew that voice, all three of them, even coming from down the hall within the courtroom, raised up and a step ahead of everyone else. Like one the world - this world, this moment - held its breath, many for no conceivable notion beyond an instinctive knowledge of imminent destruction. And then, as one, the frenzied fury of action; the screaming starts on the tail of Shepard's cry as he runs for the door of the courtroom, both for safety and to try and get back out there to-

-"DOC, GET DOWN!" Vega yells amidst rupturing panic, upwelling like pressure released from the bowels of the earth; like a boil pressed too hard; like the idiotic notion of kicking the hell out of a hornets nest. Marina feels him press down at the crown of her head, subconsciously registering that Vega is physically urging her to a squat behind a console, the better to shield her, "JOHN," she screams, simultaneously aware of Williams's own cry of _Shepard_, husky with fear, split seconds before the hideous sound she cannot place; a menacing growl with overtones that throb in her molars, bask unwelcome in the spine and threatens to liquefy her bowels.

The world stood still.

Then the world explodes.

* * *

Reality is white; bright - painfully so. Marina felt her tympanic membranes throb; her sinuses ache and it feels like something is trying to burn through the base of her skull, before she realizes it's her Amp, heating to painful levels. How she managed to throw up a biotic sphere in time is beyond her: Protective instinct, most likely. Combat training. Even so the cruel explosion battered against her reserves, her manipulations faltering: She isn't the powerhouse biotic her brother is, that's for sure.

"Nice one, doc," Vega grunts, pulling himself up from where he was half crouched around Marina's body, leaving only her arms extended outward, a physical mnemonic to correspond with the execution of the Sphere humming around them, but trembling. "Only seen Asari pull that one off before," he continues, gruff and distracted as he sweeps their broken surroundings, absorbing the battle field, his training long since kicked in.

"Don't get too excited," Marina grunts, releasing the Sphere with a groan and limpness of her arms. "I'm crap at the flashy-kill-kill stuff."

"'Flashy-kill-kill'?" It's William's voice, coming closer, a little breathless.

Pressing the heels of her hands to the aching pulse behind her eyes, Marina nods slowly, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth, "Yeah, you know... the stuff John's good at."

"You OK, doc?"

"Yeah, lieutenant, just - whatever the hell that was its force was intense. You ever try to shield against a cannon blast with your mind?"

"Doc," James huffed out a half-laugh, half-grunt, hauling the medic up to her feet by her biceps as he checked her over, motions quick and efficient, purely professional; his concern stark, though, even as he quips, "I _am _my own shield."

"Explains your face, jarhead," Ashley pipes in, before her own features screw up and she pressed two fingers to her ear, "Admiral? Williams here-"

"Scars add character," Vega muttered, though not truly phased by the LC's jibe; he steadies Marina with one arm as she finds her equilibrium and breathes easier, gripping a small measure of one of his bulky shoulders before standing on her own. "You're bleeding, Vega," she notes, indicating his nose.

"Yeah, you clocked me a good one throwing your arms out for that shield-thing, doc. Sorta cramped my attempt at chivalry, _chica_."

Wincing she shakes her head slightly, "Sorry, here-"

"S'fine, doc, not broken. I'm good."

She takes his word for it, already moving away from him, moving at a half crouch in case of more incoming fire, heading to the closest bodies; helping up another woman also caught in her hasty Sphere; then coming upon an ensign just outside of her range, battered and bloodied. She checked for a pulse reflexively: None. "_Shit_." Standing she moves to the next body, only half listening when Williams speaks to Vega, "C'mon, Lieutenant, you're with me. We've got to get to the Normandy, Anderson's orders."

"Yes, ma'am. Doc!"

"Go on, Vega, I'm needed here," she said, pressing fingertips to another too-still neck._ C'mon, c'mon... someone has to be alive... _

"All due respect, doc, your brother will fuck me _up _if I don't keep you with me, _entiendes_?"

"He's right, Lieutenant," Williams broke in, pure command in her voice and fully expecting all within range to snap-to. "Come on, we're moving out _now_."

Biting back an unsavory curse, Marina tries to shrug off Vega's renewed grasp, with all the effectiveness of trying to pull an oak tree from the roots, "I'm a _medic_, LC. I'm trying to do my damned job."

"That was an _order_, doc."

"Fuck your orders, LC" Lavigne snapped back, "this one has a pulse, god dammit."

"Dammit, Vega, haul her ass if you have to."

"Doc," Vega's pull is undeniable, inexorable, moving her away from the body she's squatting next to as she tugs at the jacket of her uniform, intending to put the fabric to use. "Doc," he urges, stressing the word, then again, a hiss in her ear as he hauls her back full bodied, "_Marina_, c'mon, look at him: He's a gonner," though gruff and rough edged, there's an undercurrent of regret - of caring - heavy in his voice. "We've got orders. We've got to go or we end up like him."

The pulse she felt was weak; too weak - the reason for its faint flutter apparent when she took full stock of the sight of his eviscerated torso, shrapnel sliced through the thin fatty layer over the gut, spilling out pale, glossy intestine in sharp contrast to dark Alliance navy blue and cammo.

_Just five more feet... if I could have stretched myself five more feet..._

Wrenching herself from the marine's grasp [successful only because he allows it] she nods, picking up the pace alongside him as they catch up with Williams, past the worst of the metallic, smoking, too-sweet-burning-flesh, too-acrid-charred-tech travesty of the blast range they escaped from, humping it for the quarterdeck and exit.

"LC! What the fuck was that thing," Vega shouts as he gently pushes Marina ahead of him, one hand at her back, so he can take up the rear as the trio moves.

"A reaper, Lieutenant."

"_¡Qué puñetas!_"

"You spoke to Anderson," Marina pressed the LC, addressing the womans length of dark hair as Williams half-trotted ahead of them, maneuvering past rubble and chaos of the people reacting to the catastrophe of the blast. "John's with him?"

Despite Ashley's displeasure with Lavigne's recent insubordination [and the overall sucker punch of discovering something else about a man she _thought _she knew], William's isn't petty and if its one thing she understands it's concern for family. Whatever else she might feel about this revelation of Shepard's past, she responded sympathetically to the medics fear, "He's with the Admiral, yeah, they're both fine. We've got our orders now: You gonna keep up, doc?"

There was no cattiness to the question: It was pure soldier, through and through. Enlisted or Officer, a grunt is a grunt, that much hasn't changed and Marina warmed to that quality in the LC, "Ma'am,"she addressed William levelly; no bull, just straight, "I'm a corpsman: I wasn't showing out, I was trying to do my job."

"Noted," Ashley retorted, curt, though not acidic or begrudging, "But there are medics on hand and you're coming with us to the Normandy 'til Shepard or Anderson tell me otherwise, understood, or does the Ox over here need to sling your ass fireman style?"

"Ox?" Vega groused from behind as their pace leveled out for a moment, both combat grade officers taking standard issue Avenger ARs from the security checkpoint where personnel were arming up and strapping in. "LC, _por favor_, at least call me a _Bull_, damn."

Without missing a beat while he quips, James hands up a Predator sidearm for Marina; she takes it with a short nod, her expression introverted. Consternation painted on her eyelids; the furrow of her brow; the taut line of her jaw, she checks the compact weapons thermal clip; "I'm with you, LC," she informs Williams, displeased but certain.

She nursed her own irritation with the surety of the pistols grip in her hand, wishing for a good medkit instead; her advanced requisition omni-tool, the comfortable tools of her chosen profession, rather than the weapon necessary in this attack. Ultimately, her ire had little to do with Williams or Vega or their orders and everything to do with fear and annoyance. Fear of what was happening. Annoyance of the inevitable: She was 'Shepard's Sister' to these people, of importance only because of the value her brother placed on her. _Look after 'Rina_, the same old line, though John was seldom prone to questioning whether or not _'Rina _wanted looking after or how.

Her desire to see her brother whole and well was coupled by the desire to smack him upside the head: There was nothing new about the duality of her love and her frustration.

"Head in the game," Williams called, addressing the two lieutenants as she resumed her double-time gait, from the damaged halls of HQ's sleek, modern construction into the wind, ash and debris. Around them were squads on the move, bloodied bodies of more victims, civilians running; screaming, terrified, moaning sobs.

"Commander," Vega shouted when they got their first look at the numbing view of two of the colossal Reaper forms settled in the midst of the city; a slow hover-crawl, insectoid, gruesomely cold, these alien-machines, these nightmare synthetic gods. "We've got incoming!"

Like a meteor; a ball of fire exploded to the ground half a football field away from their position; as if the sky itself now called for the annihilation of humanity. Horrific, the demon things crawling out from the explosion, unscathed by their violent descent. Hulking beasts: Flesh and cybernetics, humped backed and cannon-handed. Sleek, grey forms, human in appearance, running like rage-zombies from bad horror vids.

"Husks," Ashley shouted. "Don't let them get on us, LT. Move, doc!"

* * *

Marina wasn't playing self-effacing when she declared herself well out of her brother's league when it came to offensive biotics: As the trio ran, half-crouched, firing shots as the need and opportunity arose, the medic managed a meager Shockwave, strong enough to stagger a husk from tackling a woman running bloodied and shoe-less a child in her arms. Marina faltered, wanting to turn back for the civilians; sharply overruled by Williams, though Ashley's expression was ashen as she barked the order. Where Lavigne's biotics only slowed the creature, Williams' marksmanship took care of the unflagging, single minded approach of the husk, screaming, as if calling for its fellows. The trio could only hope the woman and child made it to the evacuation shuttles weaving and cutting through hostile air.

The explosion behind them as they fled deeper for the spaceport spoke of a dismal fate for those left behind and brought a choked back wail [snarl? howl?] from Marina: Lamentations shot through with the bitterness of rage. Every iota of her training and nature told her to turn back to help the other support troops and she felt only a small comfort when she managed another brief Shield to deflect debris from another bombardment of meteor-pods.

Williams and Vega were warrior-numina on the field: Terrifying. Beautiful. Inspiring. Awful, in the truest sense of the word. The LC was composed and commanding; more than capable in the thick of the fray and coolly intent on their goal of fighting only when it was unavoidable, so as to reach their destination. Following orders, though Marina suspected that steely resolved cost the intimidating woman just as much as the medic herself. And Vega, too: His reflexes seemed effortless, the sight of such compounded strength in motion breathtaking as it was downright daunting. But Marina wasn't alone in her grunts and snarls of vexation as they moved on, forcing themselves past any number of squads and civilians; wreckage and annihilation.

And the screaming.

Ever and always, the screaming.

In truth it took less than a quarter of an hour to make it to the Normandy: It felt so much longer, though. The time warp of combat wasn't unfamiliar to Lavigne, but her last hot drop was two years ago, as a corpsman assigned to a unit of gung ho marines. And even during her time as a front lines corpsman, the targets were Humans, Batarians, Krogan, Vorcha: Terrorists and mercenaries; slavers and criminals. The enemy terrorizing the defiled streets of Vancouver were heinous in their utter inhumanity, no semblance of soul; no basic bonds of civilized thought. Truly these were monsters in the night; horrors rained down from a sky that promised no salvation and mocked the hope of Providence.

One of the hulking, hump-backed, malformed beasts was crouched over a mess of gore: Human limbs, synthetic-nightmare shreds: A grotesque and blasphemous smorgasbord of living victims and its own twisted kind. There it feasted, just outside the final passageway into the _Normandy's _hangar. Marina felt a primal surge of raw satisfaction as she watched James drive the blade of his Omnitool straight through the gluttonous fiends neck, wrenching back and slicing through. Cable and tendon severed, a gaping hole, rank with organic ichor and enzymatic ooze. One hefty combat boot clad foot slammed down on the still yowling remnants of the cannibal ghouls face; with the sound of twisting metal juxtaposed to the meaty squelch of a bursting melon.

"Nice one, LT," Ashley grunted her approval, slightly winded, as she dropped down from the corrugated metal of the passageway and called up her own omnitool. "This is Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams to the Normandy. Come in Normandy. We need immediate boarding leave, as per Admiral Anderson's orders, clearance code Charlie-Niner-Five-Zero-Alpha..."

"James, your arm," Marina muttered, moving closer to the marine, his shirt ripped; gore sluiced along his left arm and splattered elsewhere. When she touched him she felt the electric tremble charged through him like live-wire: Adrenaline and violent outrage. Up close she saw his nostrils flare. There was nothing at all gentle about those rich hazel eyes just then as he stood galvanized over the macabre defilement. He was unresponsive to Marina's words, panting softly, lips parted.

Williams continued communicating with the _Normandy_, its engines already coming to life, the mechanized roar of imminent departure reverberating in the cavernous hangar. _Joker? Is that you?... We need on, __**yesterday**__, Joker..._

Silently, the medic passed her omnitool over Vega's bloodied arm until he stiffened and turned away abruptly, facing her with one index finger raised like a warning. All too clear, his seething fury; in the face of this utterly senseless carnage and their fleeing it, leaving others behind. But he wasn't the only one in pain about these circumstances: And through the red-haze of his ire he could make out Lavigne's anger; her vexation in the face of a feeling of impotence. His hand lowered, the crimson sheen fading further, his breathing evening, between a moments unspoken understanding and her quick application of a minor dose of medigel. Her eyes, he was surprised to notice, weren't near black at all, but a dark blue, like unpolished lapis lazuli he once saw dredged up from a mine in Cali, years ago.

Just as he needed to vent some of the violence in him to depressurize; so too did she need to heal; both of them seeking outlets beyond professional training; something closer to the core of their own natures. Polarity. His lips moved in a silent _Gracias_.

"_Por supuesto_," she murmured, breaking her gaze away. Crouching briefly she snagged up a glint of metal from the strewn gore: Dog tags. Her expression, James saw, stony, rather than broken. One of those moments where it was maybe even possible to see a similarity between brother and sister.

"Alright," William's broke in, turning to them. Somehow, Marina noted, the LC's hair was this perfect wash of flowing mahogany. Tousled and wild, but lovely. Whereas she knew her own dark auburn hair was slipping loose of its knot and probably impersonating medusa in the sweat and smoke and grime. Jerking a thumb back towards the docking bay, Ashley motioned the two junior officers onward. "Lets get airborne and get some fucking payback."

"Amen to _that_, LC," Vega hissed, a mountain (or a grizzly bear) seething rage.

Wrapping the bloodied dog tags around her wrist and forearm, Marina followed them aboard, decontamination bypassed - overridden, no doubt - and onto the _Normandy _SR-2, ship of burgeoning legends and lore among the Alliance and other galactic races alike. They moved in and Marina was greeted with the sight of a female PFC - about half the size of Vega, in full BDUs - holding a M-5 Phalanx, her grip at the high ready, the pistol at condition 1. Vega reacted by mirroring the stance, with every iota of his extra bulk, girth and height shifted to his advantage.

"Ain't familiar with this greeting-of-the-day, PFC," he spoke, low voiced and all the more menacing for it. Authority rang clear in the young officers presence.

The PFC - Westmorland, her name tag read at her breast - scowled but her grip wavered. Another private to her rear left flank cursed under her breath, "Bethany, dammit, he's an officer!"

"What the hell is going on out there, LT?" PFC Westmorland snapped, "We got word of LC Williams coming aboard, not-"

"I'm right here, PFC. Now stand the hell down. It's like goddamned Armageddon out there, we don't have time for this shit. Joker!" With complete self-assurance that her orders would be followed - or just the utter inability to waste another moment on the sudden Mexican standoff. She strode left to the cockpit where an unseen male called back, "Asses and elbows in through the damned doors, people, we're taking off _now_."

The subtle inertia of dampened motion shifted the sensation of Marina's gravity core, a tingle through the pelvis and broad flanks. She stretched out a hand to the hull of the now-sealed airlock and followed Vega who followed Williams; watching now as Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau eased the frigate free of clamps and dock, as gracefully as a man caressing his lover.

They were airborne and the view left them all breathless.

Vancouver burned.

Reapers hover-crawled through the city, the laser blasts of their cannons reverberating through the frigates hull as a they watched an Alliance cruiser attempting to take down one of the metallic-sheen goliaths, the cruisers ballistics near comparable to arrows flung, each one praying to be that one lucky stone; each shot failing.

Williams was on the comms with Anderson again, the static of the communication broken up; audible from where Marina stood, gripping the back of the co-pilot chair to the right of Moreau, whose hands were flying over the digital layout of complex flight controls, vermilion eyes sharp as hell in his fluid concentration.

"Oh god," Williams broke out, "They're gonna take out that cruiser! Evasive maneuvers!"

"No shit, Ash," Moreau snapped, hands moving even faster than before, "Strap your asses down!"

Marina's perception distorted drastically, from what she assumed must be impact or barrel rolls or something insane and complicated; only to realize it was from being bodily lifted and set down into the co-pilot seat and strapped in, Vega's arm smearing blood over her uniform, his hands deceptively agile for their bear-paw size, "Hang on, _muñeca_," he spoke gruff near her ear, one hand on her shoulder, the other gripping the seat back just as she had a moment before. Marina grimaced, generally opposed to being manhandled, but the irritation was fleeting in comparison to the rising bile in her throat, queasy from the moves Moreau put the _Normandy_ through as they evaded the destruction of the cruiser; the disintegration of vessel and crew.

"That's it, baby," the pilot crooned to the ship, then spoke over his shoulder to Williams, harsh and utterly disregarding of protocol, "We got an extraction point, Ash?" The question barked he snapped his eyes towards Marina and James, "And who the hell are _they _getting all cozy in my flight deck? And what the _shit _is going on?"

"Not yet, Joker, keep comms open for a transmission from Anderson or Shepard," Ashley answered, unphased by the pilots demeanor as she stood behind him, one hand on the back of his seat, straightening herself from the wild moments breathes before. [_Hair still perfect_, Marina noted, with equal parts rue and admiration] "The Grunt there is James Vega," the LC continued, dispensing with formalities or rank, "And she's Marina Lavigne-" for the briefest moment Ashley's eyes met Marina's, the inquiry there silent but quick and clear: _We keeping your relationship to the Commander a secret?_ Marina grimaced but shook her head fractionally and Ashley nodded, continuing, barely a beat missed, "Shepard's sister."

Joker cut a glance sideways at Marina, surprise clear in his eyes beneath the brim of his cap; then he looked back at his control panel and shook his head, muttering under his breath...

"It's gonna be one of _those _days."


	3. Memories of Mindoir

**_A/N: __This chapter is written in the first person, from Marina's point of view, largely because it deals predominantly with remembrances of Mindoir. There's very little "canon" information provided on most of Shepard's background, whatever his/her origin or reputation, so I've taken liberties, of course. Also, it's pretty long. ⌐.⌐_**

**_I owns nothing! BioWare = All Mass Effect rights._**

* * *

"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man."

- Frank Herbert, _Dune_

* * *

"Consider yourself reinstated, _Commander_... you know what you have to do."

Anderson's voice carries through the gaping maw of the the Normandy's shuttle bay; yelled up from where he stands, upon the ruins of a docking pier, amidst the shambles of Vancouver, now an active war zone.

And we're losing. If any a battle should follow this one, the first is certainly a loss on our side. Alliance and UNAS resistance seems decimated at every turn and a once crisp, clear blue sky is riddled and poxed with smoke streams; sky fire and the crimson false-dawn hue like linen dunked in a bloody pond. Anti-aircraft volleys are still sounding, but after each reverberating drone of that horrific klaxon, another turret falls silent. Even now, I can hear Moreau over the comms: "We've got to move, people! My ship's a shiney fucking target here!"

The wind from the open shuttle bay whips my ode-to-gorgons hair into a renewed frenzy as I make my way closer to John; closer to my brother. He's battered - bloodied - but whole and standing on his own, without difficulty. He's faced away and I think he calls something back to Anderson, but momentum and shifting wind currents carry it away. I've only body language to rely on and his is stiff: So stiff it makes me ache. Ashley leaves him, hurrying past me, armed; so too the soldier who was helping her provide covering fire as John leapt aboard, the kind of long jump usually attributed to Olympians.

If the Olympics were hosted in the seventh circle of hell.

"Shepard," Ashley calls over her shoulder, while I move forward and he stands still, watching. Watching while the _Normandy _begins to lift away. When at last I'm close enough that I can stand just behind him, I can follow his line of sight to the shuttles below, where military personnel are waving aboard whomever they can before trying to make a break for it. Johns gaze flits askance as I approach the lee of his shoulder, my hands holding there, lightly.

"Still afraid of hights?"

"I'm a crap soldier," I whisper in response to his observation, his voice deadpan and austere. He shakes his head fractionally at my answer: Just a touch, barely noticeable; grabs my hand in a cinch that's unwittingly sure to leave bruises. Not for the first time I'm impressed anew by his uncanny ability to exude an aura of strength [determination; will; obstinance] to spare. To lend.

Then a tremble. A shudder. His eyes cut back sharply to something caught, just-so, just in the periphery of his vision and I feel more than see or hear the way he tenses beside me.

A young boy, tawny haired. He should be racing about a rooftop garden; toy ship in hand, movements as brisk and weightless as his unburdened mind. But there he is: Scampering aboard a shuttle, just before its side hatch is closed down; a soldier pounding on the door, signaling for the pilot to take off, alongside a twin transporter.

There it is: That sound. That fucking atrocious, heinous, nauseating affliction of sound, like the growl of the abyss itself; like the roaring ire of a sky god run afoul. It's a pressure in the sinuses that stabs pain along the bones of my face. An eye: The opening eye of the nearest Reaper beast, all red glow, to freeze the spine and dilate the pupils as my higher cognitive functions war against what remains of base human instinct. Run. Fight. Freeze. Live or die.

John is pure constraint beside me as the shuttles lift, one on the tailwinds of the other. The baleful eye aligns; laser fire cuts a swath upwards even as we move away, drawing back. The shuttle bay is closing.

First one transport. Then the next.

Rubble. Fire. Ashes.

John moves at last, looking away, yanking at my hand, like he might spare me the sight as well; though my eyes are too full of what I've seen in the last.. what... half hour? Has it only been that long? So short a time for everything to fall apart; so brief a span for our illusions of civilization and technological savvy to disintegrate like the lost souls caught up in those rutilant beams.

My brother says nothing, though I try to hold on to him as he turns away fully. His hand pulls free of mine, the last look at his gaze highlighted in the ultra-sensitive vision of my adrenaline pumped state. Hyper aware of how time and trail have marked his eyes; crows feet at delicate skin and bloodshot sclera. I could be looking into the eyes of a man three times his age.

I could be looking at our father.

His gaze is hard. That clenched down, fortified stare: it scares me more than anything else so far.

It always has.

The shuttle bay closes entirely behind us. John is already halfway towards the armory set up just outside the core elevator and as I watch James comes storming up after him, from wherever he'd stood during our interminable seeming retreat from the makeshift extraction zone. That the younger marine is irate is plain to see in stride and voice as he calls after my brother, demanding his attention.

I just stand back, though; watching. And the viper of fear coiled in my gut is more than just a reaction to this invasion [slaughter], more than a human response to horror and death. I'm afraid for him. I'm afraid of what this war - this staggering war - will do to him.

And if I'm honest, I'm thirteen-years-old again and maybe, just maybe...

...I'm almost afraid _of him_, too.

* * *

_On the planet Mindoir in the Caleston Rift cluster of the Attican Traverse, in the medium Andarta system [named for an ancient Gallic goddess of fertility] there dwells a burgeoning human agricultural colony. Founded in 2156 - a year before the First Contact War - Mindoir was middling but promising, especially given its close proximity to the very borders of Council Space and the lawless Terminus Systems. _

_My parents arrived with the first batch of colonists, their toddler son with them. I was born a year or so later, one of the first children born in the compound constructions that made up the colonies medical facility, in the heart of Bon Moisson, the main settlement site. And if you worked hard, hoped harder and had the general disposition of a freedom-fierce pioneer, chances were you'd do well. These qualities well suited my parents, especially my father, who could no longer stomach the cramped cities and metropolises of Earth, the strict government control and oversight of farming and ranching. Savvy sells of arable Argentinian land prime for dwarf wheat allowed my father to settle his family well on the new planet to which they immigrated. Using his same knowledge of modern strains of Borlaug's disease resistant and bountiful grain crop, my father soon had acres worth of profitable and self-sufficient lands. My favourite was always the orchard, with its expanse of sweet rowed varieties of apple and peaches; plums and cross-breeds to titillate the tastes not just of fellow colonists but, eventually, trade 'neighbours', like Asari controlled Illium. _

_In 2170 I was thirteen; John was 16-going-on-30. Sixteen and aching to leave elysian fields to my father's soil-loving hands. Sixteen and crazy eager to get-the-hell-off-this-rock. Johnny was always... driven. Intense beyond his years. Discontented, forever in his bones. Oh, he was no malcontent; no mystantrope. But the structured-promise of farming would never be enough to satisfy within him whatever it was that always had him testing the boundaries of himself, his mind [and parents sanity and nerves], forever determined to produce within himself and through his work just one more iota of __**more**__. When he wasn't intense he was shy; when he wasn't quietly observant he was aggressive. He was gentle as can be with myself and our mother, a strong-but-gentle sort we both all but deified. And while I never doubted my father and my brothers love for one another, it was the kind of love that was born in the blood and bonded by the very same similarities of personality that made it all but impossible for them to to live together, more and more as Johnny came of age. _

_On the Northeastern portion of our orchard you had the best view of the road that lead to Bon Moisson, some 33km from our homestead. John was given to frequent treks into the settlement those days. And, oh, how I fancied him a swooping falcon aboard his hard-earned second-hand scooner, a hoverbike much abused by its previous owners, but well loved by Johns own patient, dogged ministrations though mechanical aptitude was never quite his forte. Another quality my brother and father shared: They could eventually succeed at - even excel at - most anything they decided worth their time and attention. It was a quality highly respected in my father... and no-little scorned in my brother, among his peers, for John lacked, at the time, my father's stoic sense of self-assured humility. To put it plain: Sometimes Johnny could be downright full of himself._

_That evening, after I raced out to meet Johnny and sneak a ride on the scooner, I passed the twilight after supper back in the orchard, but on the lee side, closest to home. On Mindoir there were insects and birds who would bioluminesce in the twilight; my mother called the insects Lighting Bugs [though I later learned the ones on Mindoir were larger than those on Earth] and the birds Evening Ladies [it was only years after her death that I realized she had given them a clever - and somewhat naughty - name, for their flashing red glow that broadcasted fertility]. To my still-romantic thirteen-year-old mind, these creatures were the fairies within my magic garden and there I could dance among them, without the near crippling shyness brought on by my [to my mind] traitorous bodies transition from child to young woman. At the time my bodies daily-seeming changes left me feeling alien in my own skin: Looking back I think I danced and hunted alone among the trees as a way to chase peace between my fancies and my realities. There was no hope for it: Life had seen fit to give me slight breasts and a growing jug-butt; plumply pear shaped unlike my lovely cello shaped mother... and I just had to deal. _

_They fought that night: Daddy and John. Those days they fought too much; more so since the Dry Lung had become an increasing affliction for my mother, leaving her unable to quell their arguments with her quiet, articulate words. Daddy was intelligent, but not scholarly. Mama was a University girl, with a MA in 21st Century American Literature; she had a love affair for Vonnegut and Atwood, often musing on what those old greats might have to say on the current state of humanity. Without her quiet-but-dry wit to ease the men of her family, Daddy and John went at it with increasing frequency and rising fervor. Best I could tell John was spending a lot of time with some representative of Terra Firma, a political party that Daddy didn't like. He called them dangerous and narrow-minded. John called them self-sufficient and affirming of the unique individuality of humanity, threatened by so much exposure to alien races and alien ways. _

_Mr. Weiss, the head representative, was talking up a dream to John: About leaving Mindoir sooner than the Alliance would take him; training to be a personal bodyguard to key members of the party. Brett Weiss had a cybernetic eye warmer than his natural one and gave me the creeps. And though he spouted all sorts of good sounding reasons for why Terra Firma was just 'misunderstood' and 'looking out for humans when everyone else just wanted to go the easy, lazy way' I think in the end Johnny just wanted the hell off the colony and out in the 'Verse. Daddy knew it too. And now, looking back, I know he feared for his son. But then, it was just two single minded forces of personality, crashing together like storm fronts that swept thunder and lightning in its pass. _

"_They're hatemongers and xenophobes, John!"_

"_Gah, for someone shouting about how narrow minded they are, you sure won't let go of your own damned stereotypes."_

"_-And Weiss is as checkered as they come. I've heard some nasty things about how he helped get that Inez Simmons elected-"_

"_C'mon, dad, anyone who loses an election is gonna bitch about how the other side didn't play fair. That's democracy at work-"_

* * *

"Stow it, Lieutenant," Shepard hissed at Vega, one index finger jabbed towards the tank-built marine's chest. "You don't want to go - we get it - but this isn't a democracy. We're going to the Citadel: You want out, you can catch a ride from there."

John turned his back on James, who washed my brothers harsh-clipped words away with a frustrated gesture. I half-snapped out of my reverie, revisiting memories healed but scarred. Our eyes caught - mine and Vega - as he turned away and I stepped forward. There was anger there. Pent up frustration. And maybe a touch of disillusionment. There was intensity, not unlike John, and I was the one who looked away first; heat in my cheeks for no goddamned good reason beyond battle-heat, the familiar way people can connect in high-stress situations. I'd long ago learned to be wary of such chemistry-induced infatuations. And there was a crackling, static-riddled comms call coming in that caught our attention: Admiral Hackett's voice over the QEC, barely registering, but persistent. He mentioned Archives at Mars. He mentioned Dr. T'Soni and my eyes lifted towards the small vid-screen: What I could see of it between James-the -Mountain and John-of-Granite, anyway.

Liara. And something of potentially critical importance on Mars.

Somehow the connection of Liara T'Soni and crucial information didn't phase me in the slightest. Or, for that matter, Liara and a connection to my brother. What for, this time? To what end?

To what cost?

* * *

Mindoir called me back...

"_What about Sanya? You think Terra Firma is just going to let you keep fooling around with asari if you go work for them?"_

"_Dammit, old man, it's not like that!"_

"_Don't you make fists at me, son. Old age an' treachery will win out every time." _

"_Aw, fuck this-"_

"_-don't you speak that way-"_

_Mama started coughing, then. One of the loud, hacking fits, compounded by wheezing intakes, whistling and desperate for a lung-full of life giving oxygen. My throat constricted, tears spilling over as I raced from my arbor-sanctuary and into the house. The argument - escalating into a fight - died instantly, and I found my father already hurrying into mama's room while John entered the pass-code for the medicine compartment in the alcove next to the kitchen. I moved clumsily for my parents bedroom, watching in half-glow light as my father soothed a calloused, worn hand over my mother's clammy brow. I went to the other side of the bed, taking Mama's free hand and holding it to my cheek; cool from the night air of mid-Spring. Mama's hand felt colder than my cheek; chalky white in the dim setting. _

"_Stop... fighting..." she wheezed, while my father supported her thin frame, sitting her up to ease her breathing. _

"_It's find, Hannah, meu amor. We're all fine."_

"_Dad's right, mom. You know us," John spoke up as he entered the room and handed over a medi-capsule to my father, then stood and - after a moments hesitation - rested his hand on our father's shoulder. "We just don't have any volume control, that's all."_

_Though pain - and then the drugs Daddy administered via machine and omni-tool - clouded my mother's eyes, she still looked from my brother to her husband and back again, somehow managing to eloquently and silently call them on their bullshit... and beseech better of them as well. _

"_You're cold, mama," I said, placing a kiss to her palm and rising - all feet and stupid-off-kilter-curves maladroit - to fetch one of the blankets with the thermal strips..._

_...that's when we all heard it. The sirens; blaring over the suspended signal buoys of the sky-way and road that connected the settlement and main homesteads. A painful wail, urgent and repetitive, instead of low and long. Not a storm, then. I was still too young then to know the pattern for what it was. It was John who spoke up, while Daddy just got real stone-faced and Mama looked more wane._

"_Unauthorized atmosphere breech," John breathed, sounding awed. Neither of us remember there being an attack on the colony. The last one was over a decade ago: Johnny wasn't pissing in the pot, yet, and I was still nursing, for christ's sake. John knew the pattern from his training with the Junior Militia, of course. He sounded awed, yes. His eyes got larger. Then they tightened. And he looked... eager. _

_I fought the urge to stick my thumb in my mouth and grabbed my mom's hand instead. She squeezed it: Weak and yet still comforting, while my father drew a settling breath and nodded to himself. "Alright, John, __passarinha_, you two get your mom to the shelter while I go into town."

"_What?" John crossed his arms over his chest, young built, but already showing the promise of the stature he would achieve as a man, "Hell no, I'm in the J.M. I've got to head in just like you."_

"_And leave Marina alone with your mom?" Dad's faint accent from his native Brazil was usually so subdued as to be non-existent... it only really cropped up with certain words and when he said my name. "Think, son!"_

_And Johnny was just that: Quick thinking, fast on his feet. His eyes darted from mom to me, concern and eagerness at war there; calculation tempering both. "They come with us. Think about it, pop," even-voiced; the voice of reason. "If this is bad, it may last a while. Mom can't hold out here, we don't have the meds and care she'll need. That's all at Bon Mois': It's best if we all go, then we can do our job __**and **__make sure we're protecting mom and 'Rina, too."_

_Daddy agreed, in the end. _

_Even then John was just the sort of person who could lead. And you wanted to follow him. He was gutsy and smart and the logic made sense. _

"_Alright," dad said. "You're right, son. Your mom needs access to the med center..."_

* * *

"Gear up," John was saying, clearly meaning Ashley and James. He had half his armor on before I made up my mind and started digging around for something a little more substantial than my torn, sullied service uniform.

"No, Marina," he cut in, voice low, but razor-edged. I caught the glimmer of protective fear in his eyes, there and gone again.

"Hackett said you lost contact with Luna Base, right? I might be able to help with any casualties-"

"I said 'No', Staff Lieutenant," he cold-snarled, his Commander Shepard face on in full force. His daunting stare was one thing: He was my brother beneath it all, no matter what his record, his miracles, his mythos. But if I undermined him, I'd be setting a terrible president in front of Williams and Vega. Brother or not, he was also my superior, and he had no qualms - obviously - in pushing that advantage.

"Respectfully," I said through my teeth, patently trying to ignore Ashley and James watching; trying to stare through Commander Shepards cool-resolve steady-stare. "What do you suggest I do if not help out in the mission?"

Fractionally - an increment, but visible to me - his hard eyes softened, the frosty blue shifting to cornflower blossom on a grey day, "We've got a Med-Bay, 'Rina. Make yourself at home there. I promise: If we can bring anyone back for medical care, we will."

Setting down the standard blue-cammo vest I'd taken from the at-hand supply closet, I nodded, letting my under-fire stance relax slightly. Very slightly. "Sending me off to med-bays while you go play hero doesn't tend to go well... _Commander_."

It was a low blow. Cruel, even. And I regretted the words as soon as they left my lips; my chagrin painful on my bruised face. And John sure as hell didn't miss the meaning of my words: His grip on his greeves tightened until he went white-knuckled, bone pressing up against thin skin. The polymers of his N7 arm bracers creaked slightly.

"_Perdoe-me, por favor_," I breathed, 13-years-old again, angry and horrified. No, a grown woman, nearing 30, who isn't sure how to balance the sibling and the legend. My confusion is no less real than my shame, though. My pulse throbbed in my jugular, probably visible to the naked eye. My ears were red at the edges, I'm sure, flushed with self-chastisement under an audience. Vega, at least, was merciful: He busied himself with his gear. Ashley just watched, something between confusion and understanding on her face. Consternation, too, and I could read the look too easily: She was wondering, no doubt, just what all details she was utterly unaware of when it came to a man she obviously admired... and maybe more.

John was reserved; withdrawn. Years of old callouses roughed up and protecting whatever within him might yet be soft: He nodded gruffly, eyes on his gear. "There's nothing to forgive," he grunted. "Now go." His dismissal absolute.

"Be careful," I told him in passing him, my face half turned his way and up, words for his ears only.

He said nothing.

Just like all those years ago.

* * *

The Med-Bay aboard the _Normandy _is state-of-the-art. It lacks the size of a med-suite aboard a dreadnaught, of course, but [as I'd already noted elsewhere on the vessel] Cerberus certainly spared no expense and shone through with engineering ingenuity in making the most of what space was available. Thankfully the Alliance tampered little with what Cerberus created: Alliance insignia marked the walls and comprised the goods, but I could see private-sector influences above and beyond the standard military fare.

Out of long-ingrained habit, I strip off the long gloves of my uniform, torn and dirtied during the mad dash to the docking bay. Methodologically I begin to scrub at my hands as a surgeon would before an operation, watching as the water of the deep-well sink shifted from dirty-rust colored, to clear suds. I'm Lady MacBeth, though. Maybe all docs and medics are. I don't think we're ever convinced the blood is gone, not truly...

_They took the heart of the settlement after two days of siege. _

_Batarians: Four eyes, wrinkled-seeming faces, too many skin-folds, foreheads so high. Sharp, sharp teeth, like Turians, but at least Turians are oddly fascinating to look at: Like primeval raptors. Lovely, in a lethal sense. Batarians are far more humanoid in appearance, but twisted in my eyes. Some are business like in their capture and assessment of the colonist. Others exude the saccharine-ill scent of cruelty. And even in my youth, I was surprised that the differences of demeanor among the aliens only made them more human in my eyes. Because I'd caught that sickly-sweet-fetid scent from humans before and now: Like from Weiss. _

_Weiss was in the clinic with us, lingering for over a day though the medi-gel had long since healed the glancing wound he stumbled in for. He stayed to guard us, he said. Full of bluster and high talk about how he wouldn't let those Four Eyed Bastards take us. Then we'd heard the outcry when Bon Moisson's K-Barrier fell. We heard the fighting in the streets and our supposed guard-dog became more like a skulking rata, vermin native to Mindoir._

'_Doesn't matter where you are,' my father would say, 'Earth or space, a rat is still a rat.'_

_I was too young for my own omni-tool and had no translator: When the Batarians swept the clinic their voices sounded like hissing and purring; strange and soft for a species that seemed so feral, so carnivorous. They lined us up for inspection: Those of us who could stand._

_The sick, they dispensed with quickly._

_The batarian that shot my mother was calm and soldierly and the kill was clean, straight between the eyes as Hannah Shepard tried to make her frail, sick body a shield between them and I. _

_Bits of skull and skin; clumps of hair; globs of grey matter and blood: My mother, gruesome in my hair, splattered down my blouse, my jeans. I was too numb to feel much when another alien grabbed me, pushing and prodding, roughly clinical in their assessment of my pubescent form. He checked my teeth like you check a horse. Pinched my arms, judging fat ratio. The blunt invasion of a finger or probe in vagina and rectum were exploratory and accessing, utterly devoid of sexuality. Too debasing to be called medical. Veterinary, maybe? I was an animal. Maybe I sounded like an animal: Keening low in my throat. _

_The inspecting gloved hand came away bloodied: I was menstruating. I think he made a sound of disgust; I think his features were disgusted. Messy ripe human females. _

_Another batarian in some kind of reinforced suit instead of armor: He pushes the inspecting, invading fellow away from me and hisses something, rumbled low. _

_In another room, screaming starts anew._

_The one in the suit, he motions idly with one upturned hand, the movement graceful in its refined simplicity. As I'm pushed along out of the room, away from my mother's dead body, I can hear Weiss behind me. Blearily I notice he's speaking to the one I consider the Foreman, the Businessman. The batarian in the suit._

"_I know where other shelters are, bunkers. Women and children... they'd fetch a good price, right?"_

_Coward._

_I hate him more than the batarians. _

_The adjoined room is a charnel house now. They've stacked up the dead, disposed of them in a heap. Someone is dragging my mother there. Upon the clinic beds living colonists groan, weep, yell, scream. Batarians move around them: I can't see what is being done, but something is happening behind a half-drawn curtain. And the ones they pull away stumble; they can barely walk. They move like they're drugged and have heavy, bloodied bandages wrapped around their heads. _

_Clumps of hair on the floor: I feel my head grabbed. Firm more than rough. With cool precision some kind of mechanical razor shucks away a thick patch of my hair, behind my left ear. The rest of my long hair is tied up, almost carefully, as if they didn't want it damaged. An asset? There's a stark shock of russet-auburn on the ground now, amidst the more common dark clumps of hair; deep browns and blacks. _

_The one in the suit, he rubbed a heavy curl of my hair between his fingers, the talons of his nails manicured. Clean. He crooned something to a lackey beside him: Sibilant nonsense. He looked disapproving at my face: Tears, blood, gore and snot. I was being valued. Priced. Assessed. _

_He waved over another of the aliens and I was passed off, marched from the clinic._

_That's when John found me._

* * *

"Doctor Lavigne?"

Blinking from my reverie, I looked up at being so addressed, from a woman about my age - maybe a bit younger - her voice pleasant to the ears, her look easy on the eyes. Swarthy skinned and British-sounding accent. I looked her way, only sluggishly turned from recollections long lain dormant. She cleared her throat, offering a half-smile, "Comms Specialist Samantha Traynor," she introduced herself, making it sound almost like a question, which made me smile despite my melancholy, though I'm sure the gesture seemed wane.

"I'm not a doctor. No doctorate."

"Oh! Sorry, ma'am," the way she said 'ma'am' sounded more like 'mum,' not disagreeably. "Ah, Staff Lieutenant."

"Just 'Doc' is fine, Specialist."

"Sam, please. Or, ah, Traynor?"

Samantha was either nervous by nature or just out of her element. I guessed the latter, not unkindly and nodded her way, turning away from the sink. "Then call me Marina."

"Oh... yes, ma'am.. Marina... ma'am."

"Did you need something, Sam?" I asked to ease the conversation along, looking her over for any signs of injury of which there were none. Her fatigues were clean and crisp: She must have been aboard the _Normandy _all along when this whole mess started.

"Oh! Yes, Ma-," stagger; quick cover-up, "Doc. That is, Joker asked me to pass on the pass codes for the med lockers but you weren't responding to your Omni'..."

The question trailed away, her deep, bronze-flecked brown eyes - like chocolate with hints of caramel - shifting from my face to the sink behind me, then my salved hand and up again. I gave her my best nurse-practitioner smile-of-reassurance-and-competence and forced a sound of self-deprecating humour from my raw throat, "Sorry: I was mulling some things over. Here," I synced up my Omni with hers, the restricted file transferred, and nodded my thanks. "That's lovely, I might as well take stock while we wait. Any word from Mars?"

"There's a bad storm interfering with our comms, doc. In fact I best get back to trying to help EDI re-establish it if-" she hesitated, I think, from equal parts compassion and protocol.

"Carry on, Sam. Thanks for the codes."

"Yes, of course," the younger woman turned away, the door of the med-bay whispering as it opened, as if with a sigh. On the threshold Samantha looked over her shoulder at me, "It'll be alright, you know: With Commander Shepard aboard, we'll win this yet... whatever it is."

So earnest. So genuine. Not naive, so much as hopeful. My heart ached, but my lips cooperated in smiling back her way, "You better believe it, Traynor."

* * *

"_John! Johnny, stop! Stop, he's dead!" _

_Never before had my brother felt so immovable as he did when I tried to yank him away from the prone form of the dead guard; the batarians skull was crushed, pummeled with the large rock John used as an improvised weapon. Thick folds of flesh split open and mashed: Brain matter similar to humans, blood a viscous yellow-green I associated with mucous or pus. That fluid was splattering now with each meaty squelch of the rock bludgeoning ruined head. _

"_Johnny... please..." I whimpered; the frail sound finally breaking through to him. He stopped at last, panting, breathing hard and heavy, his body racked briefly with a vicious shudder before he hurled the rock away and grabbed me blindly, hugging me close._

"_Mom?" he whispered hoarsely a moment later._

_I shook my head, a low moan strangled by his hand over my mouth, the grip loosening as I choked back the sound, the hand moving to smooth over me sullied hair._

"_Papa?" I finally squeaked out and it was his turn to shake his head, breath hitched tight in his throat. It was only seconds that we clung to each other. Seconds of stark, brutal grief before he moved in the dark alley between compound conex living quarters, dragging the twitching body deeper into shadow. He was still breathing hard so I helped him by dredging up the courage to grab the batarians legs, hefting up some of the weight. Barely. _

_When we were done we crouched together near the mouth of our alcove: I clung close and he rubbed my arm absently, his profile bold; older seeming; harder. Colder. "Alliance drop troops landed 12 hours ago, but they're bogged down," he spoke in a whisper, each word deadpan. "Can't get to us. These fuckers are prepping their last shuttles for take off: They'll be done soon. We just have to-"_

"_Here! Over here! See? I told you, just in there. Cache's of goods that'll fetch a helluva price on omega. I brought them as a goodwill gesture. Take it; with that and the asari and her kid you'll be set up sweet-"_

"_Weiss," John murmured, sounding surprised. Perplexed. My jaw clenched until my molars ached as I forced out breathy words, "He's helping them, John. To save himself."_

"_He wouldn't..."_

"_He __**is**__!"_

_In my vehemence [and tenuous grip on hysteria] my voice rose. John slapped a hand hard over my mouth again, cursing under his breath. We heard a batarian voice, then another and footsteps approaching. _

"_Trust me," John whispered at my ear... then seemingly disappeared, letting me go and melting into the obscurity in the depths behind us. _

_I was bait._

_And it worked well. The batarians found me: And they were easy targets with the gun John prised off the one he killed with the rock. Once more batarian blood mingled with my mother's over my clothes, on my body. I started vomiting, heaving up chunks and bile and only came aware moments later: John and Weiss were arguing, in low hisses, John had the strange looking pistol in his hand. High tech, not the old 21st century ammo-using sort my dad had at home, relics from bygone times. My brother had the gun trained on the man he'd defended back at home just two nights ago. Years ago? Trauma turned my thoughts to mush. _

"_We have to survive, Shepard. That's all that matters. Surviving, so we can get payback against those bastards, don't you see?"_

"_You were helping them, you sonuvabitch!"_

_There was a faint orange glow in one of Weiss's palms. Disorientated, I couldn't place it. He had a hand raised, palm up, a beeseaching gesture like he was reasoning with John, but the other hand was slightly behind his back and that glow... what was that? Did I hit my head?_

"_I was doing what I had to to live and fight tomorrow, son-"_

"_Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth, don't you call me that. Did you give them Sanya and her mom, you shit-stain? DID YOU?"_

_The expression 'everything was a blur' is cliche, but sometimes accurate. Certainly my memories of those days, those nights, that moment: A smear, a vortex, darkness and hurt, those are my chief recollections. But some moments hold clarity over others: Some details, crucial or just odd fixations of a young mind trying to cope with horror. Noticing the orange glow was crucial. But when I realized I'd taken one of the strange guns from the second fallen batarian; when I realized I'd fired on Weiss, fumbling and near-disastrously inept... all I have a clear memory of is that Weiss had pissed himself at some point, his pants dark wet at the crotch, down the inside of his legs. And on his wrist there was a bracelet, beads and charms, the kind of thing I used to make when I was six or so. Was Weiss a father? Did he have a little girl at home, waiting for him?_

_The recoil of the weapon in my hand rocked me back on my ass, the gun slamming into my nose before I dropped it. And a tech-blast from the strange high grade omni Weiss was working went off in time to the blast: Fire erupted. Scorched linen scent - he had enough money to afford from-Earth natural cloths - and then roasting flesh, like sweet-then-burning pork or lempsky. _

"_I'm sorry," I moaned, scrambling back like a crab, away from carnage and flame._

"_I'm not," John spat._

_Grim satisfaction in his eyes frightened me: There was a moment where I thought I'd lost him. I remember cringing away from him as he walked up to help me to my feet. That's when he softened, my fear piercing something violent and vengeful in him. He gathered me to him, like he was my same old Johnny again, and spoke with his chin atop my tangled, dirty hair, "I'm sorry it was you, meu passarinha. But I'm not sorry he's dead. I'm not sorry any of them are dead. If it wasn't for you I'd find more of them and-"_

_Letting me go, he was hard again; gone his comfort, granite returned. "Please don't go," I pleaded._

"_I won't. But here," he took the weapon from my hands. "You let me do the shooting. You stick to bandages and kisses, it's more your thing, passarinha."_

* * *

"Doc! We've got incoming. Ash's been hurt."

Joker's voice over the intercom pulled me back into the present, back into myself. I think I actually dozed at the small desk between the supply lockers and the examination table. Pressing the heels of my hands to my burning eyes I sat upright, "Got it, Moreau, thank you."

"Joker," the pilot corrected. "EDI is patching the commander through on your omni-tool, Doc, stand by."

I punched up my omni-tool, watching as the vid display crackled to life. Poor quality but functional. As if reading my thoughts, the disembodied voice I could only assume was 'Edie', spoke, her synthetic voice soothing, a svelte feminine alto, "The signal will clear significantly once the shuttle exceeds storm altitude, Staff Lieutenant."

"Thank you," I murmured; my query about who all she - it? - was evaporating from my lips as the signal strengthened on my comms and a face appeared on the screen.

Liara T'Soni.

"Liara?"

"Marina?"

Her surprise is damned near palpable, on expressive features of colours all shades of cobalt, cerulean and ultramarine; features unchanged from three years ago. She collects herself as I ask the crucial question: "What happened?"

As Liara transfers Ashley's omni-tool readings to me, John speaks up, "Marina, you've got to-"

There's a need in his voice; pain seeping up through the tight pressure lid of his mien.

"Don't worry, John, I've got this. Bandages and kisses, that's me."

While I didn't wish Ashley her injuries: Getting back to work felt wonderful, precisely the panacea I needed. At last dreams of Mindoir faded away, drifted back into the bygone corners of my memories.


End file.
